A 3 1/2 mile stretch of rusted track is being reconceived as the “QueensWay.”
Writes the Times:
It has been abandoned for five decades, a railway relic that once served Queens passengers on the old Rockaway Beach branch of the Long Island Rail
Road. For all those years, no one paid much notice to the ghostly
tracks, long overgrown with trees and vines, as they ran silently behind
tidy houses in Rego Park, dipped through ravines in Forest Park and
hovered above big-box stores in Glendale.
That is, until the High Line expanded the possibilities of a public park.
Former NYC parks commish Adrian Benepe is on board with the project.
Here’s another wacky idea for an old train line that runs to Rockaway Beach: Fix it so that people can take the train to the beach.
Of course, if that had happened 35 years ago, Joey Ramone and his faux brothers perhaps never would’ve hitched a ride to Rockaway Beach–and rock music history would forever be altered.